Saturday, June 15, 2013

Brandywine Creek After The Big Rain

After a spell of commercial work and heavy rain for about a week, including some severe weather I finally got a chance to get back out and do some Plein Air painting, and I returned to the Brandywine which never ceases to work its spell of beauty. This time I was accompanied by by buddy, super painter and fellow PAFAite , Aaron Thompson.

Aaron had never been to the Brandywine before so we met up in the Museum's parking lot and I gave him a bit of a tour of the local area as we wanted to get going and get the paint slapping down as we had just reached solar noon. As we hunted for spots in the super-soggy landscape cross the muddy grounds and fields we can upon a lot of cool spots, but searching was not without incident as I slopped around and fell and got scratched up a bit trying to get to a spot. I really need waders or army boots as it was just so slippery. I ended up getting stung by some kind of bush that puts these little fiberglass-like bards into you or stings you like a jelly fish. My arm arms were hit pretty good and in fact they are still tingling where I got scrapped. As I painted my arm got hives on it, but after a few hours they went down. Oh well, nature it tough, so you have to be if you want to paint her!

Aaron setting up his rig with his new Gamblin colors that are as they say "The Shit".

This is Aaron's painting in progress, you can see that little dob of the new high chroma Gamblin green which is some combo of Hansa Yellow and maybe a Pthalo Green or Cad Green. It's fantastic! It really hist that high bright green you see in the photo below--I can't wait till it's out in stores.

We had many canoers go past on this beautiful afternoon. Below is a picture of me racing the sun with tingly arms slapping down the paint.

Every once in a while its great to get up and stand back to see how things were coming, and check for ticks!

Aaron putting the final touches on his paintings and then we packed up and were off to have lunch at Hanks Place right across the way from the Museum.

AAron and I inspected out work and talked about how we were really trying to keep the masses simple, repainting them over to unite them several times as we worked quickly. Corbett and Sargent make it looks so simple, but believe me, it sounds easy in theory, but its hard work. What you see, vs what you need to design, eliminate, move, compress and what the painting needs. Its an intellectual construct fuled by your emotional reaction to what you see. Gosh, that sounds soooooo simple!

Arron's swell painting as he left it, he wanted to stop before he felt he might start making decisions that would not make the painting better.

Here is my final painting, and I felt the same way, stop while it had that spark of freshness to it. there was so much debris and piles of logs, driftwood and limbs, etc I could easily get too picky! I kept squinting and painting in and taking out or merging details the entire time. I had scouted more spots deeper into the back roads so tomorrow we plan on getting back out and painting some old barns or building.

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The Philadelphia Plein Air Painters

We are a group of local painters in the Philadelphia area who are drawn together through our love of painting in the Plein Air tradition out and about in the greater Philly and North East Corridor. Urban, suburban, seaside or country--everything is a subject for our brushes and palettes.